


may the road rise to meet your feet

by kalypsobean



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood, Growing Up Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:27:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo knows Sam has magic in him, the way he brings Uncle Bilbo's garden to life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	may the road rise to meet your feet

**Author's Note:**

> For aliensouldream as part of [Lord of the Rings Secret Santa](http://lotr-sesa.livejournal.com) 2014.

Frodo is barely in his tweens when he comes to Bag End, a young Hobbit obsessed with books and adventures. He secretly thinks his mother would have been glad to be rid of him; their little house is a mess of things he's knocked over and broken while slaying dragons and adventuring in the mountains, and his aunt will be able to clean it up and put out Great-Grandmother's porcelain again. But to be living with Uncle Bilbo! They say he's a bit touched, what with his stories of trolls and dwarves, and the magical things he keeps locked away in Michel Delving and the dark maple chest in his study. Frodo loves his uncle, for he tells the best stories and understands that there's a whole world out there beyond the Shire, one that he too wants to see.

When he arrives, he finds Hobbiton full of grumpy old Hobbits and not very many tweens at all. He's used to adventuring alone, of course, but he had hoped to have someone to share in his elaborate scenes, because sometimes it's quite scary, and a long journey can be made shorter by the quality of the company alongside. Uncle Bilbo tells him not to worry, because most Hobbits just don't want to have anything more than a simple life, and after all, they're together now. But Frodo has heard all of Uncle Bilbo's stories, and knows where they're being embellished. And Uncle Bilbo is getting too old to crawl under the table-mountain and climb the book-hill, though he doesn't look it.

One day, not too long after Frodo settles into his room under the hill, Uncle Bilbo tells him they're having visitors. The Gaffer does for Uncle Bilbo's garden, and his son is just learning how, so he can take over when the Gaffer's back finally gives, though it had long ago. Frodo hides in the kitchen until he can hear voices, then he pops his head over the windowsill and calls out a hello. The Gaffer starts, but the young Hobbit is near Frodo's own age, and he waves, too well brought up to run over and ask to play.

Frodo sighs, but he still lets Sam be his friend. They talk through the window while Sam does the garden, and they go drinking, once they're old enough. But Sam is steady and comfortable, like most Hobbits, and Frodo likes him for more than that, for the way Sam pulls him back when he goes off half-cocked and always has a picnic basket prepared even when Frodo hasn't said he's off for a walk. He'll complain if Frodo drags him along, and he'll lay out the food just so, but he makes Frodo laugh with his jokes and sometimes even pretends to be a loyal and good knight, just like Frodo always imagined he'd have.

 

Gandalf comes to visit, infrequently at first, and then more often, awakening Hobbiton with his fireworks and just the right subtle amount of disdain for the people who look on the Bagginses down their long and rounded noses. Sometimes, Frodo thinks Gandalf looks at him and Sam with a bit of a twinkle in his eye, like foresight, but Sam says only the Elves have that, and Sam would know, for he learnt everything he could about Elves once Uncle Bilbo told him all about the wonderful gardens in Rivendell.

Frodo would take Sam on his adventure just so he could see them, gold and green and brown and stretching for miles under tall lofty trees and Elf lights strung so high they look like stars. He catches Sam, once, singing to the garden.

"It's no use, Mr Frodo," Sam had said, "I'm no Elf." Yet, Frodo searches through the halls and finds some of Uncle Bilbo's old poems, and instead of laughing like the tweens from Buckland (his cousins, he sometimes has to remind himself regretfully) he teaches them to Sam. The garden grows in a bit greener after that, even if he says so himself.

"Anyone can have magic," he says, but Sam looks at him with such disbelief that it hurt, deep down. But Frodo knows Sam has magic in him, the way he brings Uncle Bilbo's garden to life, the way he is always strong and calm, the way he looks on Rosie Cotton with such gentleness and the Hobbits who paw at her with such anger. Sam's magic is a different kind, but magic still, and Frodo knows he would be grateful for it one day, moreso than now, at least. 

 

Adventure comes calling when one least expects, and Frodo is settling down, perhaps under Sam's influence, perhaps under Hobbiton's dreamlike calm, or perhaps just through finally reaching three foot six and a half and realising he can grow no more upward than reach the Sea, when Gandalf comes calling once more. They speak quietly at first, in hushed whispers in case the birds of the Shire were the first to turn black, and more openly when they turn to talking of how and when, as if preparing for a trip to visit long-distant family fraught with no danger save for what Great-Aunt Dora may think of his strange and ill-refined ways.

"I must go alone," Frodo says to Sam, on explaining only part of the situation.

"Of course you are, and I'm going with you," Sam says to Frodo, as if it they were already a unit, as if they were playing Elves and Goblins in the trees on the side of the Buckland Road, and it was foregone that Sam would always be lieutenant and Frodo the captain because it was Frodo's idea and Sam was just humouring him to get out of helping his mother on washing day.

"Yes, yes that is quite a good idea," Gandalf says, and that twinkle is definite, though Frodo sees it but for a minute. "It is settled, then."

 

Much later, barely more than a year but feeling an age older than the earth, Frodo is rather grateful for that, and for everything that Sam is and has done, though he has no need to speak it. Words mean nothing, not when Sam can bat them away and say he did naught but what he promised, and that was no trouble, not when they're so far from a place where one's word is a bond or even to be trusted without proof. Instead, Frodo lets Sam hold him, though his body aches more than he can bear and the touch only ignites it, sending pain through the nerves he has frayed by coming this far. He is glad not to have adventured alone, as he had so young, so long ago, along the shores of The Water on the East Road. 

"It'll be alright, Mr Frodo, you'll see," Sam says, almost impossible to hear over the falling fire and the mountain. "It's done now."

Frodo thinks he feels Sam's breath across his forehead, though he could have mistaken that for a hot wind, bringing down another rock. The kiss is not easily imagined away, though, and Frodo almost has the strength to regret not being able to keep his eyes open long enough to return it. There would be time enough, later, if they were not swept away by then; time enough to see how Sam has changed from his adventure, if it's not too much trouble to see if it's the kind of change that will resist the journey home.


End file.
